


An Unpleasant Scene

by iulia_linnea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-19 00:16:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/566910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iulia_linnea/pseuds/iulia_linnea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lily Luna's getting to be a bit too clever for her own good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unpleasant Scene

**Author's Note:**

> Written on 8 June 2010.

_She'll help me to understand, I know she will_ , Lily Luna thought, trying to concentrate on the memory in spite of her impatience to discuss it.

"—mocking me, laughing at me because I wouldn't use my magic to get what I wanted. They said they'd prove to me just how easy it was."

"So that's when they pulled that . . . prank on Mary MacDonald?"

"It wasn't a prank. It was just . . . just as Lily said: Dark magic. Avery and Mulciber cornered MacDonald in the library, and Mulciber drew his wand. 'She's pretty enough, Snape', he told me, 'she'll do—anything that I ask—just watch'."

"They used _Imperius_ on her?"

"Mulciber did, and he bragged about it later in the common room. If your mother and Lupin hadn't have happened upon them, he might have got more than a kiss."

"But in the memory, you tell Mum that it was all a laugh. Did you really believe that?"

"No, but there was nothing I could say in defence of them, or myself. I shouldn't have left MacDonald to Mulciber, but when I heard Lily's voice . . . . If she'd known that I'd been there and why Mulciber was stealing kisses, she'd have dropped me."

"She did drop you."

"Yes, because I chose the Death Eaters and Dark magic over our friendship. I chose the Dark Lord. Lily couldn't accept that, and if she had, she wouldn't have been the girl that I loved."

"Why the hell did you do it?"

"I have no reasons to offer you that you could accept."

"That's not an answer. You said you'd tell me everything."

"Because at the time, I was certain that the only way to have Lily and keep the both of us safe was to choose the winning side. People were dying, Harry, and the Ministry wasn't doing anything to stop the killing. I was certain the Dark Lord would win."

"So what you're saying is that you were horny, stupid, and scared—and that you thought Voldemort would give Mum to you."

"Essentially, yes."

"Well, that _was_ stupid, wasn't it? Under those circumstances, she'd never have been able to love you."

"Obviously, I didn't believe that at the time."

"You just said that Mum spurned you because of your choices. What made you think she'd accept you if Voldemort gave her to you?"

"I wasn't thinking. I was, as you said, young and stu—"

Suddenly, Lily Luna found herself blinking into the too bright light. "Why'd you pull us out?"

Aunt Luna looked at her and shook her head. "Because I'd seen enough. I'm certain that you saw plenty more than you ought to have done."

Lily Luna blushed. "But he loves Mum!"

"Of course your father loves your mother," Aunt Luna said, busying herself with dinner preparations. "Whatever makes you think he doesn't?"

Lily Luna ignored the question. "Dad _kissed_ him!"

"Yes, plenty more than you ought," Aunt Luna murmured, sprinkling some flour onto the counter. "How did you come by your father's memory?"

"Even though he knew that Snape was a filthy Death Eater, even though he knew that—"

"Lily Luna Potter! How _did_ you come by your _father_ 's memory?"

Aunt Luna looked stern with her narrowed eyes and floury hands on her hips, and suddenly, Lily Luna regretted having pretended to need her Pensieve as a pretext to discuss her father's memory. She swallowed and flushed but didn't say anything.

"You were snooping and stole it." 

"It wasn't snooping. I was just looking around that attic and found—"

"A locked and warded trunk. Yes, I remember. I was there when the memories were packed. You stole the memory, Lily Luna. You would have had to have done. Locked and warded trunks don't just go offering up their contents, now do they?"

Lily Luna didn't understand why her aunt was so upset, so she tried charm. Smiling, she said, "Aw, come on, Aunt Luna, don't be mad. You always say that there's nothing wrong with curiosity."

"Get out."

Lily Luna's eyes widened in alarm as her aunt turned back to the counter, turned her back _on her_. "What?"

"There's nothing wrong with your hearing. Get out."

"But Aunt Luna, I—"

"Get out of my home, Lily Luna. I don't like thieves. I don't like snoops. I don't like little girls who take it upon themselves to judge other people without all the facts. Right now, I don't like you, so get out."

Lily Luna thought she'd sick up as she fled, tear-blind, from her aunt's kitchen. _Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!_

What had she been thinking, going through her father's things, practising her charms to _steal_? It hadn't felt like stealing at the time, but Aunt Luna was right: she was a thief.

 _But Dad_ kissed _him!_

Lily Luna hadn't understood that at all. That's why she'd brought the memory to her aunt. She hadn't needed a Pensieve; Rose had access to her mum's, which Lily Luna had "borrowed" the last time she'd visited, but Lily Luna had wanted her aunt's perspective on that awful kiss.

Sobbing hysterically, she threw herself down on the bank of the river that flowed by her aunt's home and didn't stop crying until she was exhausted. There was no worse punishment for what she'd done than to know that she'd made Aunt Luna hate her.


End file.
